A NEW maternity hospital should be built in Melbourne’s west to cater for the baby boom.

The Greens are calling for the new facility on the back of their maternity services report card.

Greens health spokeswoman MP Colleen Hartland said Melbourne’s western suburbs had overtaken the Gold Coast as the fastest growing region in Australia.

Her report shows a 70 per cent increase, or 5448 additional births, in the western suburbs between 2001-2012.

Ms Hartland said with no private hospitals offering maternity services in the western suburbs, all the pressure fell on the Werribee Mercy and Sunshine hospitals.

She said little had changed since a 2011 Auditor General report found access to maternity services in Victoria was inequitable.

“This huge growth in demand has led to significant service shortfalls and difficult conditions for women.”

The report said this had led to more than 200 babies delivered in the emergency department between 2006-2011.

“Having a dedicated, purpose-built tertiary hospital in Melbourne’s West with sufficient capacity to meet current need and future growth is essential,” it said.

But Ashley Gardiner, a spokesman for Health Minister David Davis, said it had been working with maternity providers in the north and west to meet increased demand.

He said this included: two new birthing rooms at Sunshine Hospital, plus a special care nursery with eight additional cots, a $14 million expansion of maternity and neonatal services at Werribee Mercy Hospital, expanding Northern Hospital’s special care nursery and five new neonatal intensive care costs for the State.

He said also said Western Health had a 6.34 per cent increase in funding in 2013-14.

The Greens are also calling for a strategy to meet projected growth in birth numbers, better access to midwife led care and the expansion of the homebirth program.

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